Maybe I'll See You
by sheepishwolfy
Summary: AU pre-ME1 to start, will mostly take place during ME2. Shepard and Joker meet well before the Normandy is built, and eventually become BFFs. Started as a one-shot, but I love Shoker! M for language, violence, and eventual sexiness. Better summary coming.
1. Chapter 1

Captain Hackett's waiting room was almost obscenely sterile. The walls were a blinding shade of white, the carpet an inoffensive and suspiciously unstained blue-gray, the secretary's desk exactly perpendicular to the rest of the furniture and precisely three feet from theoffice door. Four gray naugahyde chairs stood on either side of the room, shined to a gleaming finish and each with exactly two inches between the arm rests. Pamphlets on conduct and base information were immaculately fanned on low, faux-woodgrain tables at either end of the rows of chairs. The whole of it was bathed in unforgiving fluorescent light.

Jeff hated it.

The room was so cold and aseptic it could have been the waiting room of any hospital in the Systems Alliance. All that was missing was the faint scent of "lemon" industrial cleaner over the even fainter yet somehow ever-present smell of blood. Yet even without that good old hospital smell, and despite his best efforts, Jeff couldn't help but be reminded of the hours spent in waiting rooms too much like this one. Of the scared little boy he'd worked too hard and for too long to ever be again, but couldn't seem to escape. He even had the plaster encasing his left leg below the knee to complete the image. That cast, he thought bitterly, was the physical manifestation of what was probably the end of his overwhelmingly brief career.

For a few glorious days, Jeff had dared to believe, to _really_ believe, he was more than that scared kid. He had graduated at the top of his flight school class without breaking so much as a toe. The sickly kid who everyone assumed was a charity case and would drop out after a few months was a better pilot after a year and a half of training than the half the instructors. It hadn't been an easy eighteen months, an endless stream of waivers and checkups and "are you sures," but it had paid off.

His unmatched skills and work ethic had gotten him a better set of orders than he would have dared to hope for: test piloting experimental starships. It was the sort of assignment that usually went to pilots with years of experience under their belts, that every new-minted jet jockey aspired to and most never achieved. His presence had not only been accepted, but requested. Pilots with legendary careers spanning wars and decades, whose names were whispered with awe by his classmates, were calling _him_ the future of Alliance aviation, a prodigy with both technical and practical skill almost unheard of in a recruit of his age.

And then, not ten minutes after arriving on Arcturus Station, he stumbled getting off the transport shuttle. The impact of his shin on the top stair shouldn't have been anything to write home about, enough force to bruise and hurt like hell, but anyone else would have cursed and shrugged it off. It had fractured his tibia in three places.

It was embarrassing. It was infuriating.

_You got complacent_, he thought viciously._ You're the best pilot to come out of the academy in fifty years and you fucked it up two days after getting assigned. You just proved you're a giant liability. Hackett's gonna put you behind a desk and you get to spend the next four years of your contract planning other pilots' flights while-_

The waiting room door hissed open, forcing Jeff out of his rapid descent into self-loathing. He looked up in time to see a skinny girl seat herself in one of the chairs opposite him. She cast him a brief, mildly curious glance before turning her attention to the book tucked under her arm.

Rubbing his eyes, Jeff took a deep breath and shifted in his chair. It wouldn't do any good to sit and wallow in his own misery. There was always the chance, the smallest chance, that this was a personal debrief with Hackett, since he had been too preoccupied with a trip to the infermary to attend the official one.

I _should have brought a book_, he thought, pulling his hat down and closing his eyes. If he was getting force retired anyway, couldn't hurt to catch a short nap.

"You should have brought a book."

The voice startled him. He pushed the bill of his cap back up and found himself looking into the eyes- well, eye- of the girl seated across from him.

"Excuse me?" he asked. He was never very socially adept.

She laughed a little. "One thing I've learned after my many visits to Hackett is that you always bring a book. The wait can be a little long."

Jeff wasn't entirely sure how to respond. He suspected that behind the black eye and the butterfly tape on her jaw, this girl was cute. Hell, withthe black eye and the butterfly tape, she was more than a little attractive. Pretty girls didn't generally talk to him, and when they did it was with the same saccharine-drenched condescencion usually reserved for infants and small animals and other things too fragile to care for themselves. Then again, maybe his luck was changing. He'd broken his leg, sure, but maybe it was so he could be in this seat and meet this girl. Besides, years of television and movies had promised him one thing: girls loved fighter pilots.

"Oh," he said, and shrugged. "Yeah. I guess."

She offered a slightly confused smile, and looked back down at her book.

_Eloquent. Real ladies' man there, Jeff_. He fidgeted, picking at a stray thread on his pants, and furtively glanced back at the girl.

Her uniform, gray and green, insinuated she was a marine. The nametag over her right breast pocket read 'Shepard.' Judging by the chevrons on her shoulders, she was a baby officer. Impressive, since she didn't look very old; he was just barely nineteen and she looked about the same, give or take a year. Bright red hair was loosely bound at the back of her head, a few flyaways curling over her forehead and the back of her neck. It was obviously not her natural color, he could see her roots were mousy blonde.

She was also a biotic, if he recalled correctly the meaning of the lightning bolts on the lapels of marine uniforms.

Suppressing a sigh Jeff settled back in his chair, crossing his arms. Whoever this marine was, she was definitely out of his league.

"You're a pilot."

Again, he was startled at her voice.

"What?" _Smooth_.

"I sort of assumed, with the flight suit and the wings on your hat, you must be a pilot," she said. "Either that or you're in here for impersonating an Alliance pilot."

"No, I'm really a pilot," he replied. _For now_.

"So what do you fly?" She had closed her book and tucked it back under arm, leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. For some reason she was genuinely interested in him. _She doesn't know about the Vrolik's yet_.

"Nothing, yet," he said. Probably nothing, ever. "I just finished flight school. Got here yesterday morning."

"Well, what are you going to fly, then?" She smiled, and Jeff wondered why he was compelled to open up to this girl. In the face of her bizarre charisma, he couldn't even muster his usual armor of wit and sarcasm.

"Uh… I'm going to test-fly experimental fighters," he said, nodding slowly and looking down at his hands. _Or I'm going to fly a desk right into an early retirement_.

"Don't sound so excited about it!" she laughed. "Test piloting sounds like an awesome job. And I hear the pay is great."

Jeff shrugged. "It is a pretty good assignment," he said, and inadvertently cast his eyes at his broken leg.

"Oh, I see," the girl said quietly. He furrowed his brow. "You know, I'd say with how clean it is, that cast is fresh. Meaning you busted your ass in some probably very stupid way before you even got a room in the barracks. And you think Hackett won't let you fly."

She had read him like a book. All from one downward glance at his own leg, she had picked him apart. Jeff frowned at her. Who are you?

"Something like that," he said flatly.

To his chagrin, she stood and moved to the chair directly next to his. "I bet you anything, you go in there and he tells you not to worry about it. After all, you don't need legs to fly," she said, and her smile was somehow both teasing and reassuring. "You just need wings. And if they put you here test-piloting fresh out of flight school, I'd say you definitely have a set."

Jeff looked into her one luminous, un-swollen green eye for a long moment.

"That is the corniest thing anyone's ever said to me," he said finally. "Ever."

The girl rolled her eyes and laughed, nudging him good-naturedly with her elbow. "I'm just trying to help, you tool. You looked really depressed there for a minute."

In spite of himself, Jeff smiled back at her. "Thanks, anyway."

"You know you're not bad looking at all when you actually smile," she said. "You should do that a little more often."

A flush began creeping up the back of his neck, and Jeff did his best to deflect the subject.

"How'd you get that magnificent shiner?" he asked.

She laughed, once, and absently touched the bruise along her jaw. "Oh, the usual. Some standard-issue asshole in the mess started picking on this poor kid for having a stutter. I told him to knock it off, poor guy can't help a stutter, right? And he called me a cunt and took a swing at me." She shrugged. "So I punched him in the throat."

"In the _throat_?" Jeff blanched. He swallowed reflexively.

"It's an easily reachable, soft part of the body," she explained, tapping a finger against her own neck. "Usually disables someone who's not expecting it. This guy had a really thick neck though, so he stayed up, and got a lucky shot in. Well, a lucky two shots, specifically"

He considered that for a moment. "So… they only sent you up here? Where's the other guy?"

A sheepish smile replaced the ferocious one, and she looked away at the far wall as though she were embarassed. "Infirmary," she said slowly. "I... might have broken his collar bone when I put him against the table by the back of the neck and made him apologize." Her eyes wandered back to meet his.

"You are the most terrifying woman I've ever met."

She wrinkled her nose at him. He noticed she had freckles. "Thank you. I try."

"You have a name, O defender of the stutterers?"

"Elizabeth," she said, chuckling. "I just go by Elle, though. What about you, Mr. Experimental Pilot?"

"Jeff Moreau, I presume?"

They both looked up. Another marine was shuffling towards the door, looking thoroughly Captain Hackett stood in the door to his office, as stiff and well-put-together as his waiting room.

Awkwardly, Jeff got to his feet and retrieved the crutches from their position leaning against the wall behind him. Lungs clenching with anxiety, he approached the waiting captain.

"Please come in, Mr. Moreau." Hackett gestured into the room behind him, a surprisingly warm expression crossing his face as Jeff moved slowly past him. He turned a sharper gaze on the girl. "I'll talk to _you_ in a minute, Shepard."

* * *

><p>"Well?" Elle looked up expectantly, setting aside her book and leaning forward in her seat as Jeff reentered the waiting room.<p>

He looked down at the floor, brow knitting. A quiet, surprised gasp escaped her, and she started to murmur an apology until Jeff cut her off with a broad grin. She had been right, and Hackett had just wanted to go over what Jeff had missed at the orientation the day before. In fact, the captain had barely even addressed the broken leg other than to ask how it was. If a cracked tibia or two hadn't gotten in Jeff's way, well, Hackett said he wasn't going to either.

"Still flying," he laughed.

Shepard smiled broadly and shook her head. "You shit, you had me going there. Good! Hackett plays the hardass, but he's a good guy. I told you it would be fine."

"No, you gave me a cornball speech," he teased. She rolled her eyes and stood up.

"The next time I'll just let you sit in a puddle of your own misery," she said, punching him playfully in the shoulder.

_Next time?_ Jeff marveled for a moment at the relationship he'd formed with this girl over fifteen minutes in a waiting room. He suspected that there was something about her easy smile and innate empathy that could convince people to do insane things for her. _She could probably talk me into jumping the Omega 4_.

"Hackett's ready for you." Jeff nodded towards the captain's office.

"Guess I better get in there, and hear the same speech." She put her hands on her hips and affected a deeper voice that was probably supposed to be Hackett. "You can't stand up for every downtrodden, unfortunate kid who thinks they want to be a marine. Let them fight their own battles. They'll toughen up or drop out on their own. You'll never finish OCS or qualify for N-school if you're too busy fighting for everyone else's career instead of your own.

"But I disagree," she continued, sticking her hands in her pockets. "I think we're marines so we can stand up for the downtrodden kids."

Jeff narrowed his eyes. "Cornball," he repeated.

Elle laughed again, and started for the door. She paused before running her hand over the green holo on the office entrance, and turned back to him.

"Maybe I'll see you around, Jeff Moreau."

A sweet smile, and she was gone.

"Yeah," he said to the closed door. A grin that he just_ knew_ qualified as stupid and shit-eating pulled relentlessly at his cheeks. "Maybe I'll see you."


	2. Chapter 2

The extraction was flawless.

Six marines from the resort, seven from the town, all in under twenty minutes with no damage to the SSV _Pearl Harbor_ despite active pursuit by batarian fighters. They were safely out of the blast radius with another ten minutes to spare before the orbital bombardment of New Delphi commenced.

Alliance command told Joker it was impossible. Retrieving half a squad of marines from two active warzones several miles apart in a frigate with kinetic barriers still down from atmospheric re-entry would be a catastrophic failure.

Well wouldn't they just shit when they heard he'd pulled it off.

This was a Star of Terra, for sure.

Two days earlier, batarians had descended on the human colony of Elysium. The slavers had chosen to begin their assault with the affluent New Delphi Beach Resort and Spa, hoping to pull a massive haul of wealthy, pliant human tourists to rob, and then sell in the flesh markets of the Terminus Systems.

What the batarians had not counted on was the half of marine unit 304 that had arrived the evening before, having gotten an amazing deal on cheap rooms due to it being the tourism off-season and the hotel proper being mostly empty.

Needless to say, the marines were a little salty about their vacation being ruined. Without much more than a few sidearms, a lot of anger over lost creds, and half a pack of cigarettes, six marines managed to contain the assault for close to forty-eight hours before Alliance reinforcements could arrive. The other seven escorted the civilian vacationers to the nearby town for evacuation by ground troops.

The 304 were bona-fide heroes.

But Joker had saved _them_. He took no small amount of pride in that. Tearing a frigate at speed through an up-scale resort to extract the 304 had been without fail the most _awesome _thing he had ever done. You didn't even see shit like that in the movies. Vrolik's or no, without Joker those jarheads would have been dead.

Now, however, the 304 made for the strangest thing Joker had ever seen.

Marines cluttered the deck, spilling out of the med bay and across the mess. That in itself wasn't particularly odd, this was after all a working Alliance ship. What _was_ strange was the way the marines were dressed.

The soldiers sported an interesting combination of aloha shirts, flip flops, khaki shorts and at least one Speedo, interspersed among the bandages, bullet wounds, burns, bruises, broken bones and various assorted abrasions. A handful of medics moved among them, stitching and medi-gelling, while the soldiers crowed and congratulated themselves and generally acted like marines.

Well, fuck. Now he'd have to be friendly.

Safely in orbit, surrounded by half of the Fifth Fleet, Joker had relinquished the helm to a lesser pilot and gone in search of food, not considering that there would still be thirteen marines occupying the lower deck.

Sure, they'd probably cheer him at first. Then they'd watch him crutch his way across the mess and wonder if he was _actually_ the pilot, or just – and this was unthinkable – the _copilot._ It was hard for the marines Joker had met in the past to wrap their little jar-brains around the idea that ships didn't have pedals, and his weak legs weren't a problem when it came to flying.

Whatever, fuck 'em, he was hungry and a bunch of ignorant jarheads weren't going to wreck his day. Not after the flying he had just done.

Surprisingly they didn't even notice him shuffle across the deck. He contemplated whether that was worse than open disdain as he sat at the one unoccupied table and stashed his crutches under the bench. An ensign came around and dropped a tray of food in front of him.

As he ate, Joker scanned the surrounding crowd. The gathered marines all appeared to be men, which was strange because the Lieutenant Shepard he had spoken to on the radio had definitely been female, and feisty. She'd threatened to 'fucking gut him' if the _Pearl Harbor _wasn't on the golf green to get her squad exactly when he promised.

Then he spotted her, separated from the rest of her squad, locked in conversation with the ship's captain. He knew immediately why she sounded familiar on the radio.

It had been almost two years, but Lieutenant Shepard was definitely the girl from Hackett's office, with the black eye and the freckles. The girl responsible for the words he told every questioning commanding officer: You don't need legs to fly.

Occasionally he wondered what happened to the marine who had inadvertently given him his best defense. Despite her half-promise to 'maybe see him around,' Joker had never encountered her again. For a while he cursed himself for not having the balls to get her contact information when he had the chance. Rarely, on particularly lonely nights in his rack, he would wonder if she remembered him.

Then he would console himself by convincing himself that, though she may have been sweet to him for fifteen minutes in a waiting room, that marine probably wouldn't have stuck around long once she found out about the Vrolik's.

Women never did.

But there she was. He could see both of her eyes this time, and she a natural blonde rather than shocking red, but it was definitely Elle. Her serious expression and rigid posture were a stark contrasted to the way she was dressed, in ragged denim shorts and an obnoxious button-down Hawaiian shirt, open to reveal the bikini top underneath. The remains of what appeared to be a blood-splattered Blasto the Spectre beach towel were wrapped around her right thigh, the edges of a brutal scrape peeking around it. Aviator-style sunglasses perched on her head.

If he hadn't personally witnessed the warzone of the resort, Joker would have pegged her for an extra on the set of a particularly bad action vid.

Realizing he was staring, Joker looked hastily back down at what passed for dinner in the _Pearl Harbor_ mess as she started to turn away from the captain. After a moment, he chanced a furtive glance from under the bill of his cap.

"This doesn't look like an experimental fighter to me."

Elle Shepard slid into the chair opposite him. Joker became aware of the scent of gunsmoke, laced with the crackling-ozone eezo smell of recently used biotics.

And, bizarrely, a note of coconut-y sunscreen.

"Because if I recall correctly, you were supposed to be a test pilot."

"That got boring after about eight months," he said, shrugging, playing it cool. He hoped to whatever god would listen that his voice didn't crack with the surprise that she did, in fact, remember him.

"Boring?" she said, raising her eyebrows dubiously.

"Sure, in a prototype you're more likely to die in a glorious blaze of fire and plasma. But if I'm going down in a ship I want it to involve some heroics, not a mis-calibrated FTL drive. Besides, it's unfair to waste my considerable talent on just one station. I need to spread it around the Alliance, make sure everyone gets a taste."

Elle laughed and shook her head. "Well, I'm glad you deigned to share your prodigious skills with the rest of us mortals, anyway. We'd be a stain on a fancy carpet if you didn't come when you did."

"Pretty sure it's a social faux-pas to die on the _fancy_ carpets. You should at least have the courtesy to bleed out on the tile," Joker replied, feigning seriousness. "They'll never let you back in that hotel now."

"Glad you can find the humor in it," she snorted, but she was laughing too. The marine reached back to pull her hair out of its messy topknot, and hissed as the singed collar of her shirt grazed the painful-looking burn that crept up the right side of her neck and over her collar bone.

"Should I get Dr. Chakwas?" he asked, actually serious now. "She's the best doc in the Alliance, she'll patch you up quick."

"Nah." Elle shook her head, and prodded the edges of the burn gingerly. "I can see the medics later. My squad's got worse holes punched in it than I do."

As though illustrating her point, across the room there was a curse and the sickening grind of a joint being pushed back into place.

"See? I'll make it another couple hours. Hungry as fuck, though."

With that she reached across the table and plucked a baby carrot off Joker's tray, popping it into her mouth.

"Why sure, you're welcome to my hard-earned dinner," Joker said, waving a hand over the tray as though it were a game show prize.

"Hard earned? I just spent two days saving an entire planet from certain firey death," she scoffed, picking up another carrot. "Besides," she added, pointing the vegetable accusingly at him, "Friends don't let friends starve."

_Friends?_he thought. _We talked for like fifteen minutes, once, two years ago. _

He decided, though, that he might actually like being friends with this girl.

"Fine," he said, and nudged the tray a little closer to her. "I warn you though, mess sergeant on this boat can't cook for shit."

"I heard that, Joker," snapped someone behind them, whom Elle assumed to be the offending mess sergeant.

"Joker, huh?" she inquired, putting her chin in her hand. "When'd you pick up that name?"

He shrugged. "Technically they've been calling me that since flight school."

"Oh?" She liberated his fork from his hand, and stabbed at a piece of grayish matter masquerading as hamburger steak. "Last time I saw you, you seemed awful serious to earn a name like Joker."

He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Oh I get it. Clever."

"I had an instructor who told me I didn't smile enough, started calling me that. I was too busy to screw around though, you know? I needed to work twice as hard for anyone to take me seriously."

"Why's that?" she asked, looking up from his dinner.

_Shit_, he cursed himself. _Shit, shit, shitty shit. You're making progress with a lady and now you have to tell her about your stupid bones._

"I, ah…" Joker paused, and pressed the thumb and forefinger of one hand into his eyes. "I have this condition, called Vrolik's Syndrome. The bones in my legs are basically hollow, if I'm not careful they'll break without much effort."

He lowered his hand, chancing a look back at her. Elle's expression was inscrutable, and Joker could only assume that meant she was finding a way to escape the conversation quickly. Or, worse, she was pitying him.

"That's rough," she said softly.

"It doesn't stop me from being the best goddamn pilot in the fleet," he said quickly, falling habitually back on defensiveness before she could say something condescendingly 'uplifting.' "You don't need legs to fly."

Inexplicably, she laughed. She had seemed so nice, and now she was laughing right in his face, no shame whatsoever.

"What?" he asked sourly. "Yeah, laugh it up at the crippled pilot."

"No, no," she said, blanching, putting a hand over her mouth and finally finding the courtesy to look abashed. She seemed to be doing her best to stifle her mirth. "Sorry," she said, waving her other hand at him. "It's just… you don't need legs to fly? You told me that was the cheesiest thing anyone's ever said to you!"

"Well, it was," he grumbled. "But it's true, isn't it?"

"It is true," she agreed, and the smile she offered him was kind. Joker felt a little bad about snapping at her.

"Sorry," he huffed. "Most people get weird when I tell them about it."

"Well I don't give a shit," she said.

"Hey, fuck you!"

"No, sorry, that came out wrong," she amended quickly. "I mean, I don't think that matters at all. You obviously fly a mean extraction run and even if you're a little bit of an asshole I still like you."

"Thanks, I guess." He hoped he wasn't blushing. He felt like he was blushing.

"Lieutenant Shepard!" Elle turned to look over her shoulder, saw the ship's captain beckoning her. "Admiral Hackett wants to talk to you."

She looked back at Joker, crossing her eyes. "Duty calls," she said.

"Good to see you again," Joker said, watching her stand.

"Yeah," she agreed, and then leaned forward. Her hand brushed his chest and she pulled a pen out of the breast pocket of his flight suit, and Joker found himself silently thanking God that he worked hard to keep at least his upper body strong.

"Here," Elle said, scribbling something quickly on a napkin and sliding it to him along with the pilfered pen. "Keep in touch this time, Jeff Moreau."

As Elle made her way across the room, Joker glanced down at the napkin. On it, in a crooked script, was written an extranet contact address.

He wasted no time typing it into his omni-tool.


	3. Chapter 3

The question had burst out of his mouth before Joker had even a remote chance to stop it. He figured that it was the absolute worst thing to say to a girl, even if that girl was Shepard. Hopefully she wouldn't get any blood on the suit. It was a rental.

But what the hell else was he supposed to say? She had stepped out of the taxi, whipped off her sunglasses and exclaimed, "How do I look?"

"What happened to your _face_?" he blurted.

"Asari commandos carry knives," she said flatly. The scar started just to the left of her nose, cut across the bridge and traveled the width of her right cheek and all the way to her ear. "But I was talking about the dress, ass."

"Oh, yeah, that's fine too I guess," Joker said, and reached out to poke her cheek. "It's still pink in the middle! How long ago did that happen?"

Shepard slapped his hand away. "About six weeks."

"Damn," Joker breathed. "Hey, you look like a real marine now!"

She pushed the brim of his hat over his eyes.

"The baseball cap really adds an air of class, there," she said.

"Oh, well, I thought so too, that's why I- hey!" He grasped for his hat as she snatched it off his head.

"If I have to wear heals," she said, placing a hand against his chest and holding the hat well out of his unsteady reach, "you can't wear the hat."

"Unfair," he griped. Shepard stuffed the offending cap into her little handbag, and then frowned at Joker's head. He sputtered as she suddenly ran her hands roughly back-and-forth over his hat-flattened hair.

She stepped back, gave him a critical look. "You should have shaved. Presentable, though."

"Thanks, _mom_." Joker rolled his eyes. "Three hundred creds to look like a penguin for a day, I should get to keep the hat on."

"Come on, it's _your_ cousin getting married. Don't you want to look nice? _I_ even put on makeup."

Joker took the opportunity to _actually_ look at what Shepard was wearing, and was surprised to see how much she looked like… a girl. Her dress was knee-length, green, made of some kind of shimmery material he was unfamiliar with. It left her shoulders bare, and displayed more cleavage than Joker even knew Shepard possessed, let alone had ever seen before. The most shocking part, however, was the fact that she wore silvery peep-toed shoes with an actual heel.

"Impractical shoes aside, help a rickety bastard out, here," he said, jerking a thumb at the stairs.

"Pimp stick not enough?" she asked, pointing at the silver-headed can he currently leaned on.

"Classier than crutches," he sniffed. Shepard laughed and slipped her arm into his, pulling him up the stairs into the church.

* * *

><p>Joker figured he should feel some sort of guilt for accidentally overshadowing the wedding reception by bringing the Hero of Elysium as his date. He <em>would<em> have been at least a little remorseful if not for the fact that the bride herself – the cousin in question – had come to their table and asked for a picture and a recounting of the Skyllian Blitz.

The one he felt bad for was Shepard. She had been answering variations of the same question ("What happened on Elysium?") for hours. To her credit, though, she answered it the hundredth time with the same good humor as the first. She even made a point to note Joker's daring rescue at the end, which was kind of her. Most news reports never mentioned that part, only the forty-eight hours leading up to it.

However, though she was good-natured about talking about a six-year-old shoreleave, Shepard had looked somewhat relieved when she needed to step out to take a call from Admiral Hackett. That had been forty five minutes ago, and Joker was starting to wonder if he should go find her.

"She is lovely, Jeffrey."

Joker looked up from his plate of slowly-congealing buffet offerings to see that his mother, Sophie, had slipped into the chair next to him.

"Who?" he asked, mildly confused.

"The girl with you. Elle?" his mother replied. "She's certainly something."

"Uh, sure," he said lamely.

'Lovely' was never a word Joker would have used to describe Shepard. 'Something,' though, was a different story. Funny, smart, scary, a noisy soup-eater… Shepard, like most people, was a lot of 'somethings.'

"I had a chance to talk with her a little. She's very sweet, she complemented my choice in 'fight-ready footwear.' And she had nothing but high praises for you, child." His mother paused, curving one eyebrow at him. "I thought you told me your girlfriend left you last week," Sophie continued.

"She did," Joker mumbled. That particular topic was still a little sore for him. She had left him for a turian, said she was moving the Citadel. "Shepard's not my girlfriend."

"Oh, _that's_ Shepard?" she replied, eyebrows lifting. "The same Shepard you always talk about?"

"I don't think Shepard's that common of a last name, Mom. She's the same Shepard all the way around."

"I see," his mother replied, in that tone mothers used when they saw something you didn't. "She wasn't your girlfriend… but you make a point to see each other whenever you're in the same port."

"Yeah… friends do that."

"And she found time to come to a wedding with you, six days after your girlfriend left you."

"She was on Earth anyway."

"I seem to recall you were very excited when she gave you her contact information, Jeff." Sophie leveled an inscrutable look on him, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

"That was six years ago, Mom," he replied plainly. "I would have been excited about _any_ girl giving me that. Okay, so, fine I was real jumped up about it then but it just… never turned into anything. She's just my friend." _My best friend_, he added silently. That would just add fuel to his mother's new fire. "She's got a boyfriend, anyway, I think."

"Did you know," his mother started, smiling wryly, "that when I met your father, I was engaged to another man?"

"No, I didn't know that, and I definitely didn't need to know that." His father was a homewrecker!

"Smartest thing I ever did was leave that man for your dad."

"Mom, are you encouraging me to be the _other man_?"

"Not at all," she laughed. "I am, however, encouraging you to get on that before someone else does." She waved her hand towards the large glass doors that led to the banquet hall's outdoor area, and Joker spotted Shepard slipping out into the night.

"Really? _Get on that_?" He looked incredulously at his mother.

She laughed again, and stood. Before leaving she bent to kiss his forehead. "I really like her, Jeff."

Thoroughly confused, Joker watched his mother walk away, then glanced back to the glass doors.

Elle Shepard was not the sort of girl you dated, he thought. She was the sort of girl you called when you needed _advice_ on your girlfriend. The sort of girl who made the trip from Singapore to Louisiana in two days so you wouldn't be _that_ guy at a wedding, the guy who was 'plus one' on the guest list but ended up an empty seat to his left at the reception. The sort of girl who was prone to saying _the_ corniest shit to make you feel better. The sort of girl who appreciated – or at least didn't openly scoff at – 20th century sci-fi movies; who taught you the right way to shoot a gun; who unironically got you crutches with a flame motif for Christmas; who traded shitty, pulpy mystery novels with you before long underways.

Yeah, she was a lot of somethings. A lot of really awesome somethings. Maybe…

No. No, no, _no_. That was stereotype romantic comedy, men-and-women can't just be friends bullshit. He was twenty-seven goddamn years old, he wasn't going to buy to into it.

Besides, Shepard was the take-no-prisoners type of impulsive that she would have made a move a long time ago if she was interested. She'd laugh when he told her what his mother had suggested.

It was slow going, especially with just the damn cane to keep him up – really, what was he thinking? His family knew he needed crutches – but eventually Joker made it to the glass doors. Outside there was a tiled patio, beyond which was a grassy expanse complete with picnic tables. Night had fallen, but paper lanterns hung in the trees illuminated the yard.

_And the rom-com_ _stereotype continues_, he thought when he spotted Shepard. She was seated on one of the picnic tables, her feet on the bench, looking up at the sky. Her back was to him, and what looked suspiciously like her shoes were sitting on the table next to her. If this really _was_ a romance movie, this would be the part when he (the dashing hero) went over and confessed his secret love, and she said she loved him too and he kissed her.

Those vids were so silly.

"Ooh, girl, let me get your digits," he crooned. It was a long-running joke between them, since a marine had used the same line on Shepard in earnest.

Shepard laughed when he slid across the table next to her, pressing his shoulder into hers and leering down at her.

"Slick," she said. She had what appeared to be a mai-tai in her hand, and she offered it to him. "I fucking love your family."

"Oh yeah?" he said, taking the offered drink and sipping at it. More fruit juice than rum, but would probably fuck you right up. "Why's that?"

"Open bar," she replied, taking the drink back. "Totally worth having to retell the Elysium story a thousand times."

"Sorry about that," he said, blanching. "I didn't stop to think that bringing a genuine war-hero to the country mouse wedding might cause a bit of a flap."

"I don't mind, really." Shepard shrugged. "It's not a bad memory. Pretty much everyone made it out alive, I got a Star of Terra, and the good guys won."

"Can't argue with that, really," Joker said.

They fell silent for a while, passing the mai-tai back and forth.

"Okay, I'm sorry, but this has been bugging the shit out of me all night," Shepard said suddenly, reaching for his neck.

"Whoa, okay, sorry I made you dress up, you don't have to choke me!" Joker exclaimed, batting at her hands.

"No, you tool, I mean your tie," she said exasperatedly, swatting his hand away and hooking her fingers in his tie. She quickly unknotted it. "The Windsor knot is just way too wide for my tastes."

"Alright, then," Joker assented, more as a courtesy than anything else. She was already busily re-doing the knot, so there wasn't much room for protest.

Joker glanced down at her as she worked. Even with the new facial scar, she was kind of pretty. Her hair, usually tied up in a loose knot, was undone, spilling down her back in lazy waves. There was a dusting of faint freckles across her nose and the tops of her cheeks. He had never seen her shoulders before, but now he could see they were freckled too. She stuck her tongue out a little when she concentrated.

If he was going to be honest, she was more than just 'kind of pretty.'

She was fucking _hot_.

"Something I can help you with?" she asked, arching an eyebrow. She had completed the knot, and had noticed him staring at her.

"Can I have my hat back, yet?"

With a snorting laugh she pressed the now mostly-empty glass into his hand and began to root in her purse. Joker wondered how she could have lost something like a hat in such a tiny bag.

"Here," she said, producing the cap and presenting it to him with a flourish.

"Thanks." He wasted no time placing it back on his head. It was so weird, not wearing a hat. It was so weird having to distract himself from… _impure_ thoughts of Shepard, of all people.

"So, uh… how's Frank?" he asked. She had a boyfriend, he reminded himself.

Her mouth pressed into a thin line, the humorous glimmer dying in her eyes, and she turned away from him to look straight ahead again. That certainly wasn't the reaction he expected. He had probably dumped her, and now Joker just looked like an asshole.

"He proposed," she said tightly.

"Oh." That was _also_ not what he expected. "Oh. Er… shouldn't you be excited, or something?"

"Nope."

"Oh," he said again. For God's sake, why couldn't he think of something smarter to say?

"He asked me, and when I said yes-"

"Wait, you said yes? So why are you so pissy about it?"

"Let me finish, interrupting space cow," she said, widening her eyes at him. He was glad to see some of her humor coming back.

"Sorry. What happened?"

"I said yes, and he immediately starts talking about how I shouldn't re-enlist when my contract's done in six months. And he can stay in, and be the breadwinner, and I can stay home and raise all these kids we're going to have."

"Because you're such a housewife."

"Anyway, I told him that wasn't going to happen. And he starts telling me how he thought he knew me, and can he have his grandmother's ring back because obviously our priorities aren't in the same place even though we'd never really talked about it before that exact moment. So he took his ring back and I haven't talked to him in like a month."

"Wow… he seemed so nice, that one time I met him," Joker said. "What a douchebag."

"Yeah. Guess I'm glad to be rid of that asshole," she said. Her tone managed to be both flippant and sad. "Just because the Skyllian Blitz is about the most exciting thing I'll ever do doesn't mean I want my career to be over already. I'm only twenty-eight, I can keep at it for another twenty years at least."

"Oh, I doubt that two days on Elysium is going to be most exciting time of your life," Joker said, shaking his head. "Pulling you out is probably the most exciting _I'll_ ever do, though. Pilots with brittle bones don't get a lot of really dangerous assignments."

"Oh, oh, I forgot to tell you!" she exclaimed suddenly, and turned, curling one leg under herself to face him. "Hackett called me."

"Yeah, I was next to you when he did it," Joker replied. "What did he want?"

"Well… I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?" She bit her lip in barely contained excitement.

"Uh… bad, I guess," he said slowly, narrowing his eyes in vague suspicion.

"You're grounded for a while. And we have to stay on Earth."

Joker thought he might throw up. Grounded? Why? Why had Hackett confined him to Earth? Why had he called _Shepard_, and why was she so fucking happy about it?

"What's, um… what's the good news?" he asked weakly. He was _definitely_ going to throw up.

"Guess who the XO and chief flight lieutenant of the Normandy project are?"

He stared at her dumbly. She didn't mean…

"WE ARE." She pointed back and forth between them.

He had never actually been giddy with excitement before, but he figured this qualified. The squealing noise that Joker made would have embarrassed him if he hadn't been so busy leaping to his feet and doing an equally embarrassing, air-punching little dance.

Embarrassing dances usually ended in embarrassing broken bones, and by the time he realized he had jumped up without the aid of crutch or cane, Joker was swaying unsteadily. Shepard slid easily to her feet and caught his arm before he went down.

Before he realized what he was doing, Joker pulled Shepard into a tight hug. She laughed, and her arms slipped around his neck. After a moment he released her, but she kept a grip on his upper arms to keep him from falling over.

"I forget how tall you are sometimes," she said softly, looking up at him. Without her heels on, and with him actually standing up straight, Shepard was a little more than a head shorter than him.

"Chronic slouch. The real reason I need the crutches," he replied. For some reason his voice quavered.

Shit. Rom-com stereotype time. Something about the paper-lantern light and her hands on his arms and her small smile made him _really_ want to bend down and kiss her.

"So are we breaking fraternization regs, if you're my commanding officer now?" he asked, standard flippancy shattering whatever sweet-awkward moment they were having. She rolled her eyes, and leaned over to pick up his cane. She pressed it into his hand and released his arm, taking a small step back. Her expression was inscrutable, but her smile never faltered. When she turned back to the table, Joker squeezed his eyes shut and cursed himself.

God, he was terrible with girls.

Plucking her little handbag off the table, Shepard tucked it under her arm and hooked her fingers into the tops of her shoes, carrying them at her side. She walked barefoot back to him, and slipped her arm into his.

"I don't think going to a wedding breaks any regs. And technically I'm not your CO for another six weeks," she said as they started back to the party. "But I'm excited we get to work together, finally."

"Yeah," he said, and glanced sidelong at her. Joker decided that whatever had just passed between them was a combination of booze and enthusiasm. "We are going to make a _badass_ team."


	4. Chapter 4

Chief Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau (he was never, ever going to get tired of the title) sat next to the large window in the base cafeteria, taking in the really quite spectacular view of the Normandy in drydock.

Well, technically she was just the NORMAN right now. Her name was only half painted on. Hopefully when she launched in three weeks, it would be all the way painted on.

But even with a remarkably dorky half-name, she was still a magnificent sight to see. The ship's sleek lines gleamed in the dying evening light. An incredible latticework of scaffolding enfolded her, swarming with technicians both human and turian, scouring her hull inch by inch to ensure she had no flaws that could result in catastrophic failure when she was finally loosed on the galaxy.

And he would be flying her.

The Normandy project had been a rumor around every Alliance port for three years, and when she was officially announced every pilot in the fleet hoped to be chosen to crew her. It had been generally assumed that, with a command team consisting of David Anderson (first N7 graduate, most decorated marine in the Alliance, and all-around general baddass) and Elizabeth Shepard (first female N7 graduate, Hero of Elysium, and all around general badass) that the helmsman would have a similarly legendary reputation.

They hadn't suspected-

"Joker."

Pulling his attention away from his already beloved Normandy, Joker glanced around to see Alenko standing behind him.

"The hell are you doing here?" Joker asked. He recovered quickly from his mild surprise and looked back down at his dinner. "I thought you were at some race-relations brunch or something."

"It was the command-team dinner hosted by the turian and human embassies, and yes I was supposed to be," Alenko said, sliding into the seat next to the pilot. "What were you so lost in thought about? I was trying to get your attention for a while, here."

"Asari twins," Joker replied.

Alenko chuckled and shook his head, rubbing at his eyes with one hand. Joker noted the marine's arms were splattered from wrist to elbow with what appeared to be axle grease. He also noticed that Alenko seemed to be wearing the bottom half of a dress uniform; sharply creased, red-piped dark blue pants and glossy black shoes, in stark contrast to his equally grease-smudged white undershirt.

"What's with the fancy pants?"

"It was supposed to be a formal dinner."

"And it turned into topless oil wrestling?"

"No, Adams called as I was leaving the barracks and told me the Mako got dropped nose-first on the dock by whatever dipshit was driving the crane." Sighing again, Alenko pushed a hand through his dark hair. His tone grew exasperated. "You know we have the finest turian and human engineers in the galaxy on this base, and not a single one of them knows basic ground vehicle maintenance?"

"I'd believe it," Joker shrugged.

"I give the Mako credit, though, for take a solid head-on slam into the dock it took remarkably little structural damage. I think its engine problems were from the factory," Alenko continued.

"That's good," Joker snorted. "You'll want a sturdy car if Elle's driving."

"Who?"

Joker's response was interrupted by the hum of a hover car passing near the window, a shining black that screamed 'government vehicle.' They briefly watched its passing, then resumed their conversation.

"Not eating?" Joker inquired, waving his fork at the empty table in front of Alenko.

"I'll go find something in a minute," Alenko shrugged. "Just happy not to be neck-deep in engine parts."

"If you left now you could probably make it downtown in time to have dinner with the ambassadors," Joker suggested. "Catch the last few minutes of Udina and the turian dancing the political-appeasement tango, while Hacket pretends to be buddies with a couple turian generals he probably shot at during the First Contact and Anderson desperately pretends he's somewhere else and tries not to punch anyone in the face."

"Sounds like a real good time," Alenko said flatly. "I'm not exactly torn up about it. However I hear the XO got in last night, and she's supposed to be there."

"Oh yeah?" Joker said, mildly surprised.

He and Shepard had changed commands close to a month before anyone else, partly because they had already been on Earth when they received their orders and partly to get an early jump on their training. Joker needed to learn the prototype frigate's systems, and Shepard needed to acquaint herself with Anderson.

Then six weeks ago, right around when the rest of the crew began to filter in, she had been pulled off-planet on some direly important N7 mission that apparently only she could do. Until that point she and Joker had usually met for dinner. Not long after her departure he had bumped into Kaidan Alenko, a friendly acquaintance from several previous missions, now the marine detail commander for the Normandy. With both of them being unabashed starship nerds, it hadn't taken long for them to strike a conversation ad start taking most meals together.

Joker wondered vaguely why, if she had gotten in the previous night, Shepard hadn't contacted him yet.

Then he wondered why that bothered him.

"Yeah. Probably wouldn't have been to bad to meet her," Alenko said, drawing Joker out of his momentary reverie. "Then again I guess I'll have the next six months of underway time to meet the great Commander Shepard and get sick of her."

"Sick of me, huh?"

Both men jumped at the voice behind them, turning to find Shepard herself smirking down at them from beneath the bill of her peaked white hat. She wore it pulled low enough that it was difficult to see her eyes, in that way marines had where the brim nearly touched the bridge of their nose.

She looked immaculate, the ideal marine officer in crisply pressed blues complete with an impressive collect of medals on her breast and a gleaming saber on her hip. Her hair was slicked neatly back into a tight chignon at the back of her heard, not a strand out of place. The image was only slightly ruined by the Starbucks drink carrier balance on her right hand, and the _Paulie's _bag clutched in her left.

Alenko wasted no time in getting to his feet, snapping a sharp salute, his eyes locking on a distant point somewhere over Shepard's shoulder.

"Apologies, ma'am," he said tightly, lowering his arm and standing at stiff attention.

Shepard surveyed him, while Joker stifled a snorting laugh. He worried Alenko might have a stroke, after potentially offending a commanding officer within ear shot.

"At ease, marine," Shepard said finally, moving around the table. She set down the drinks and fast food bag, then sat across from them and motioned for Alenko to sit as well. "Don't worry about apologizing," she said, pulling her hat off. "Believe me, I understand. You get sick of everyone on the ship after six months underway with the same eighty people."

"Of course, ma'am," Alenko said, sitting awkwardly.

"You going to introduce me to your friend, here?" Shepard asked, looking pointedly at Joker.

"Oh, he knows who you are," Joker said, pulling the beverage he knew to be his from the cardboard carrier. Venti iced Americano, pure coffee heaven. Shepard called it 'black like his awful sense of humor.' She liked disgustingly over-milky, sugary lattes and fruity teas and all manner of dainty, lady-like, non-coffee and _very_ un-Shepard-y drinks.

She rolled her eyes at him, and extended her hand to Alenko. "Elle Shepard."

"Kaidan Alenko," Alenko replied softly, grasping her offered hand. Kaidan managed to quirk half a smile, and Elle's eye narrowed a little. _Something_ flickered between the two, and Joker put it down to some kind of biotic static electricity.

Or it was love at first sight, but _that_ was just silly.

"Ah, the absent staff lieutenant," Shepard said after a moment, smiling in recognition. "You missed a spectacular dinner."

"Really?"

"Fuck, no," Shepard scoffed, reaching into the _Paulie's_ bag and drawing out a foot-long sub, with which she proceeded to gesticulate as she talked. "Udina groveled and acted like the general douche he is, all the turians except for the Spectre acted like they were extra superior to the rest of us, and I spent half the evening wondering if I was going to have to stop Anderson from actually punching someone in the face."

"Did you say Spectre?" Alenko asked, eyebrows lifting in surprise. The mention of a Council operative seemed to override his formal stiffness.

"I did. Nihlus. He seemed all right, he sat next to me," Shepard replied. "Apparently he'll be coming along for our shakedown cruise."

"Wow, that's not suspicious at all," Joker muttered, rolling his eyes.

"You are ridiculously wary of governments for someone who's in the military. I'm sure it's nothing major." Shepard finally stopped using her sub as a means to illustrate her points, and set it down. "A turian-human alliance over something like the Normandy is bound to earn some notice from the Council. And a Spectre turning up for dinner was definitely not even the worst part."

"Ooh, did Hackett get sloppy drunk and try to start some karaoke?"

"Has that happened?" Alenko wondered aloud.

"Yes it's happened before, no it didn't happen tonight. Really it was just overall an incredibly awkward evening, since turians and humans can't even eat the same food and we both seem to think that the other race's idea of dinner looks and smells disgusting."

"Probably didn't stop you from hoovering yours right up," Joker interjected.

"It didn't," she shot back, giving him a withering look. "You know I _do_ have another sandwich in here, that I was _going_ to give to you, but since you're already eating and you're being an asshole, I'm giving it to Alenko."

"How am I being an asshole? And you're just making my point. Who stops at Paulie's on the way home from a fancy dinner party other than a born-and-bred hoover-er?"

"Being an asshole," Shepard repeated. "Guess you're stuck with shitty mess hall food."

"Aw, come on…" Joker jutted out his bottom lip. "But we're besties!"

She heaved a sigh and pushed the Paulie's bag at him. Joker immediately pushed his tray aside and fished out the second, smaller sub.

Shepard unwrapped her sandwich and separated the halves. She laid one section on a napkin and slid it across the table to Alenko. "I figured Joker would be up in his barrack-cave by now, so-"

"Hey, it's not a cave!"

"It's a cave. You don't turn on lights."

"I have sensitive retinas."

"Or you're lazy."

"That too."

"Anyway," she continued, with a pointed sidelong look at the pilot, "I didn't realize there would be two of you or I would have called ahead and picked you up something to. So you can have half of mine, since I don't need an entire foot of spicy turkey, and I'd feel like an incredible dick for just sitting here eating in front of you."

Brow knitting, Alenko looked down at the half a sub as though it might suddenly burst into flame, or get up and do a little bread-y dance.

"Don't like turkey?" Shepard asked, arching an amused eyebrow.

"No, I uh… well, yeah, I do but…" The stammering was new. The pilot and the commander watched Alenko fumble for a moment, both trying not to openly laugh. "Sorry, ma'am. Don't usually split sandwiches with commanding officers I just met."

"Stop apologizing," Shepard chuckled. She reached across the table and put a hand on Alenko's forearm. "Relax. I'm not your commanding officer right now. I'm just trying to enjoy a nice, non-political dinner."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Stop calling me ma'am. Elle is fine. Or Shepard, if you'd prefer."

"Yes ma… Shepard."

Joker was overcome with second-hand embarrassment as Alenko began to turn somewhat pink. The pilot was forced to rescind his earlier judgment about the silliness of 'love at first sight,' at least on Kaidan's part. He was beginning to suspect that the lieutenant had it _bad_.

"So how was your mission?" Joker asked, taking pity on Alenko and changing the subject.

"Amazingly classified," Shepard replied brightly. She pulled up her sleeves to start eating.

"I see, as usual, you came back with the shit kicked out of you."

"I'm not very good at staying at range," she shrugged.

"Your hardsuit didn't stop that?" Alenko asked, blanching at the row of stitches that Shepard had revealed along the outside of her forearm. He seemed to be recovering nicely from his earlier stammering fit of chronic formality.

"Wasn't wearing one."

"Why not?"

"Mission required extreme subtlety. But it's still amazingly classified," she laughed. "Maybe I'll tell you about it when we're all deep in space and having nothing else to do. If you promise you can keep a secret."

"I've got a TS clearance," Kaidan replied, finally smiling. "I can definitely be discreet."

He realized what he said and immediately turned red again. Shepard just shook her head and picked up her sandwich, but she was smiling as she bit into it.

_Oh my God,_ Joker thought, watching the exchange. _This is the worst flirting I have ever seen. Please don't tell me the rest of the mission will be like this._

Thankfully, all awkwardness ended when they finally started eating. Joker caught Shepard up on the latest base scuttlebutt, which was unfortunately mostly unremarkable. Alenko just stuck to being stoic and overly formal when he did speak up.

When her second dinner was finished (remarkably quickly, she really did just inhale food… maybe it was a biotic thing, Alenko was the same way), Shepard glanced up at the clock on the wall. "I should go. I'm supposed to meet back with Anderson at twenty-one-hundred."

"Me, too," Joker agreed, leaning backwards to fish his crutches out from beneath his chair. "Wednesday is good TV night."

They gathered their respective things and made for the exit, pausing just outside the door so Shepard could pull her hat back on.

"See you for lunch tomorrow?" she said, looking to Joker.

"Absolutely."

"Great. I'll omni-text you. Nice to meet you, Kaidan," she added, nodding to the lieutenant.

"You too," he replied.

"Well I'll see you guys around, I'm sure."

"See you, Commander," Joker said as she started away from them, towards the ship.

"Hey, uh… I'll walk with you," Alenko called suddenly. "I need to get my jacket and my hat from the vehicle bay."

"I was going to say that's not a regulation uniform," she teased, pausing to half-turn back towards them. "But I'd like that."

Joker found himself recalling his mother's words from just a few short months ago. He had nearly embarrassed himself when he drunkenly almost took her advice to 'get on that before someone else does.'

Watching Shepard and Alenko walk away, he had the distinct feeling that the forewarned someone else had definitely just 'gotten on that.'


	5. Chapter 5

"Do you have some kind of Citadel frequent shopper card, or something?" Joker demanded, before Shepard could speak. She had just come back from her second meeting with the Council, and the look on her face was not pleasant. The longer he could delay whatever shit she was about to lay down, the better. "Buy one turian C-Sec officer and one quarian mechanic, get a krogan warlord for free?"

"He's not a warlord," Shepard sighed. "He's a mercenary."

"Oh, well, excuse me," Joker amended, putting his hands up. "I'm just saying, you bring home aliens like stray cats. In this case a stray cat with a shotgun and a reputation for anger management issues."

"And I'm just saying shut the hell up and let me finish what I was trying to tell you," she replied sharply, putting her hands on her armored hips. She really did cut an intimidating figure when she had her hardsuit on, bristling with guns, her hair knotted back tightly. The intimidation was only enhanced by the fact that she towered over him when he was sitting in the pilot's chair, and he decided maybe now was not the time to keep needling her.

"Alright, alright. What did you want to talk about, Commander?" he asked sweetly. Inwardly, Joker braced himself. This was the part where she told him the Council had laughed in her face when presented with the quarian's evidence, and now they had to limp back to Alliance space as a galactic laughing stock. The Hero of Elysium was now the Crackpot of Eden Prime, because she claimed to have seen the future in an exploding Prothean artifact.

"I made Spectre," she said flatly.

Or that.

"Uh," he said, in as congratulatory a tone as he could muster. Obviously she had made it, there had never been a doubt in his mind that she would, but... "Well you look like someone pissed in your cornflakes. And then in your hair."

"Not mine." One corner of her mouth tugged up in a humorless smile, and she rubbed a gloved hand over her face. "The Captain's."

Now he was really confused. He glanced around the cockpit, as though the glowing panels and security feeds would somehow grant him clarity. "Where is Anderson, anyway? He left about four hours ago with Udina and, uh, we can't really leave without him."

"David Anderson has been relieved of his command."

There it was.

"You're shitting me," he blurted.

"Yeah, I wish," Shepard grumbled.

"Why?"

"Officially? He passed command of the Normandy to me, in order to avoid certain personal conflicts of interest regarding the investigation into Saren."

"And unofficially?"

A short, humorless laugh escaped her. "Political fuckery."

"Of course, what else." Joker sat back in his chair, drumming his fingers thoughtfully against the armrest, taking a moment to mull over the information Shepard had just relayed.

Considering the fact that the entire mission had gone from 'shakedown cruise' to 'complete clusterfuck' in less time than it took Shepard to field strip a standard-issue shotgun, Joker shouldn't have been surprised by Anderson's relief. After running into the first geth outside Veil in almost three hundred years, literally _nothing_ should be particularly shocking.

Well, other than that Prothean brain-tazing Shepard had taken. That had shocked her right into a fifteen hour coma.

"Well, congratulations on your new command, I guess," he said finally.

"Thanks." Again, the little humorless laugh. "But David should be here, with us. I feel like I've taken something that isn't mine."

"Bull_shit_," Joker snorted. "You notice how Anderson generally deferred to you on just about everything? Shepard, this was always going to be _your_ ship."

"I don't know," she sighed. Her shoulders sagged the slightest amount, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. It was almost alarming, seeing her just this little bit defeated. "This just isn't how I pictured getting my first command."

"Hey, self pity is _my_ thing. Stick to what you're good at: go give the crew a corny-ass speech about the mission and then get back to being an unmitigated badass. Anderson would be _so_ pissed if he knew you were standing here moping at me and not beating your enemies with their own torn-off limbs," Joker stated. Shepard nodded, a ghost of her usual fierce smile flickering across her lips.

"You're right," she said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now get the hell out of here, let me get us off this station."

With a shake of her head, she turned and started away. He was glad to see her straightened, her momentary drop in morale over. Which a crack of his knuckles he spun his chair around to face the helm, more than happy to leave the Citadel and do some real flying.

"Oh, goddammit," he muttered, and leaned around the back of his seat. "Shepard, wait."

She paused at the end of the helm, and turned an inquisitive look on him.

"Where the hell are we going?"

"Artemis Tau cluster," she replied. "We have an archaeologist to find."

Four days later, when Joker discovered that the archaeologist in question was a smoking hot asari, it almost made up for the fact that they had all nearly died in a volcano.

* * *

><p>For the first time in the three months since taking the Normandy's helm, Joker was glad to leave the flight deck. After spending close to two days on Feros listening to a horde of plant-zombies and mind-controlled colonists scratch at the hull, all while under the constant threat of geth invasion, he wasn't ashamed to admit he was a bit shaken. As soon as the ship was clear of the relay, he gratefully turned the helm over to a copilot and went in search of dinner and sleep.<p>

It was late, well past the dinner hour, but voices drifted up the staircase as Joker descended. He paused when he reached the crew deck.

Alenko, Williams and Shepard – whom the rest of the crew had affectionately dubbed The Squad – sat at the central dining table. All three were obviously worn down, having been the ground team on Feros. Ashley's head rested on her folded arms, a tray so empty it could have been licked clean resting a few inches away. Across from the chief, Shepard had her elbows on the table, the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes and her own dinner untouched and still steaming before her. Next to the Commander, Kaidan sat astride the bench, facing her, exhaustion and concern warring on his face.

And, in an uncharacteristically _public_ showing of tenderness, Alenko had his hand on Shepard's back, rubbing his palm across her shoulder blades. Joker began to feel uncomfortably like he was witnessing something private.

"You need to eat, Commander," Kaidan said softly.

Without looking up, Shepard shook her head. "Nope," she grunted.

"You'll feel better," Alenko insisted.

"I'll vomit all over you."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take, Commander," he chuckled. "I promise it will help you, though."

Shepard's hands scraped slowly over her face as she lifted her head to peer through her fingers at Kaidan. "Is this what it feels like to be you all the time?"

Habitually he reached back to touch the amp at the base of his skull. "Not _all_ the time. Couple times a month, though," he said with a good-natured laugh. "Now, seriously, eat."

With another faint groan Shepard briefly covered her eyes again, then straightened and sighed. "Well if you're going to- oh, hey, Joker," she said, catching sight of the pilot in the stairwell and offering a tired smile.

Kaidan's reaction was decidedly less smooth. "Joker, hi!" he exclaimed, overly friendly and a little too loud. He snatched his hand away from the Commander's spine, his face flushing a furious red. "Didn't see you there."

Ashley's head popped up immediately, blinking her eyes against the light of the mess hall. "What… what's going on, LT?" she asked, the question stretching around a yawn.

"I'm just looking for food," Joker shrugged, doing his best to appear nonchalant. He started across the hall as though he hadn't just spent five minutes blatantly eavesdropping. "Didn't mean to interrupt marine nap time."

The room resolved itself into slightly awkward silence as Joker shuffled to the table and sat himself down next to Williams. The chief, meanwhile, had perked up somewhat from her impromptu nap, and was eyeballing Alenko's blush suspiciously.

"So how's the dome-piece, home piece?" Joker inquired.

"Fucking awful," Shepard muttered, and pushed the tray of food away so she could drop her forehead directly onto the tabletop. "I'm getting _so _tired of Prothean shit being shoved into my brain."

Kaidan's hand lifted briefly towards Shepard, but his fingers quickly curled back and dropped back to his lap. Ashley's eyes narrowed further.

"I'm going to assume you're not eating, then," Joker continued, furtively pulling Shepard's tray of bland-looking, military-grade spaghetti towards himself.

"Nope," she said. Alenko started to protest, but she waved him off. "I'm going to bed. The only reason any of you should wake me up is if Saren himself is knocking on the airlock."

The commander pushed unsteadily to her feet, and shambled across the mess to her quarters. Her door was barely shut before Ashley turned her full attention on Kaidan.

"What was _that_, LT?" the chief demanded.

"What?" Alenko asked, trying – and failing – to be oblivious.

"You like her," Ashley continued, pointing an accusing finger at the lieutenant.

"And you don't?" he countered. Joker watched with great amusement as Kaidan's usually perfect composure began to split.

"Of course I do. But I've never turned that really _lovely_ shade of pink when she walks into the room," Ashley shrugged. "What was going on while I was asleep here?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Chief."

"Sure," Williams replied dubiously. "You're so sweet on her it's giving _me_ cavities, LT. We all see it. Right, Joker?"

The pilot coughed when Ashley elbowed him in the ribs, shooting her an affronted glare as he tried to clear the pasta from his lungs. "Don't you bring me into this," he choked. Then he realized he couldn't pass a chance to rag on the tightly controlled lieutenant. "But I did see you being all mother-hen there, Alenko."

"Mother hen?" Ashley inquired.

"Hand on the back, getting her to eat, the whole thing," Joker confirmed, with another forceful clearing of his throat.

"I knew it," Williams snapped.

"What? I… It was…" Alenko sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, I just know what it's like to have that kind of migraine," he explained. "It's rough. A little food and human contact… it helps."

"Admirable," Ashley snorted. "Comfort the fallen Commander in her time of need. I'm sure she'd more than welcome _your_ human contact."

"I'm going to bed," Kaidan interjected, standing quickly. As he turned to leave, they spotted yet another furious blush creeping up the back of the Lieutenant's neck.

"If he hasn't nailed her by the time we catch Saren," Ashley said as soon as Alenko was out of earshot, "I will disassemble and eat my rifle."

"That soon, you think?" Joker asked, poking absently at his dinner.

"At least. You should see them planetside, the biotic duo. They're great together, totally in sync, like they've been a team for years," Ashley explained, half in awe.

"And that… means they're going to sleep together?" Joker didn't entirely follow the logic. Maybe he didn't _want_ to the follow the logic.

"It's not just that," Williams scoffed. "He worries and moons after her like a… Wait a minute. You have a dog in this fight, Moreau?"

"No," he said quickly. Too quickly, probably. He looked back down at his food. "I've just known Shepard a long time, and she's not one to break regs like that."

"There's a first time for everything," Ashley shrugged. "And just between us chickens, you could probably even talk _me_ into breaking a few regs with that ass."

* * *

><p>Holy banana balls, it only took me like a year to get around to this. I was having some trouble bridging the gap between ME1 and ME2, so I figured I'd just barrel through and see what happens. Hopefully it turned out okay. Updates should hopefully be a little more frequent now that I'm getting over the hump I got stuck on. Thanks for sticking with me through the lack of new chapters :) your reviews are all so amazing!<p> 


	6. Chapter 6

It was sort of a shame they were about to nuke the shit out of the place. Even though his view was restricted to the little window in the helm, he could still see that Virmire was really pretty. Hell, it would make a great vacation spot if you could get past the AA guns poking out of the jungle, and ignore the fact that a few miles away was a facility overrun with geth and probably angry krogan. Also the giant crabs… those were unnecessarily creepy, they could go on the 'ignore' list too.

Joker supposed he should feel a little more remorse, looking down on the pristine white-sand beach below. STG agents were loading an enormous nuke into the ship's cargo hold, and sometime in the next few hours this beach was going to be scorched glass. But if the price for galactic safety was the ruining of one stunning vista, well… sorry, perfect views.

It had been an interesting six months, to say the least. A non-stop tear across the Traverse, dotted with a bizarre combination of geth outposts on backwater planets, human-supremacist terrorism groups, a handful of thresher maws and _fucking rachni, _of all things.

Now, though, if Shepard was successful – and when it came to a mission, Shepard was _always_ successful, one way or another – Saren would be dead or in custody in the next several hours. The Alliance would impound the massive insectoid dreadnought Sovereign, and all they would have to do was clear the last few pockets of geth resistance around the galaxy. And honestly, _they_ didn't even have to do that, any Alliance troop could kill a few geth with the right preparation. The Normandy could sail home heroes, and Joker could figure out the best and least responsible way to spend six months of extreme hazard pay.

He was weighing the merits of a sports car versus a solid gold, one-eighth scale Normandy when the airlock suddenly hissed open. Shepard stepped through, wearing what Joker had early in the mission dubbed 'the Commander Face.' It was the tiniest squint of her eyes and set of her jaw, but it was enough to scare the living shit out of anyone who faced her.

"Good to go, Lieutenant?" she asked, bypassing all pleasantries.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied quickly, turning from the window. It was still awkward for him to refer to her as a superior officer.

"Good. I'm going to brief you here, rather than over the radio," she continued, her words tightly clipped. "The plan is for you get that bomb into Saren's facility with as little resistance as possible." She punctuated her words with concise hand gestures. "Lieutenant Alenko, Wrex, and myself will infiltrate the base from the rear while Chief Williams and the STG lead a diversionary frontal assault."

"Wait, wait… You're splitting up the dream team?" Joker asked, immediately wary of the idea. Shepard handled all of her major missions with Alenko and Williams at her back. In the past few months, those three had become the most efficient military machine in the Alliance. Nothing got past them.

"No choice. Kirrahe needed one of us to help coordinate between the two teams, Williams volunteered." For a moment, her hard soldier shell faded, and she chuckled, "Besides, could you really see me sneaking anywhere with Wrex _and_ Ash behind me?"

"Fair enough," Joker assented. "You guys would hit the first locked door, skip right over hacking and straight to high-grade plastic explosives. At least Alenko gives you guys a little subtlety."

"Among other things," Shepard murmured, a little smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. She moved closer, so they stood shoulder to shoulder at the window, all commanding-officer pretense forgotten. On the beach below, Kaidan and Ashley were locked in conversation with the salarian Captain Kirrahe. Around them, the rest of the STG contingency was packing in their hastily erected camp.

"You know, just once, I'd like to visit an ocean without the imminent threat of orbital bombardment," she sighed.

"Never been to the beach?" he inquired.

"Well, I tried once. Saved my pay for six months, got a great deal on a hotel room. Bought a bikini and everything. Then, first day there, _bam!" _She clapped her hands together. "Skyllian Blitz."

"Oh I think I heard about that," Joker nodded. "Couple batarians crashed a party or something?"

"Or something." She shook her head and turned a wry smile at the ground. "Not that I would have anything to do at a beach. It's not like I can swim."

Joker looked at her in genuine surprise, pushing the brim of his hat up with one finger. "Seriously? The great Commander Shepard can't swim? Seems like the sort of thing they'd teach you in boot camp."

"Oh I can get from point A to point B if I have to, but it's not pretty and involves a lot of almost-drowning. Lucky most of my missions aren't to water worlds."

"Better hope Saren's base isn't in the ocean."

"Don't you even joke about that," Shepard warned. "If it is, I'm blaming you."

"I accept full responsibility." He glanced back to the window. "Tell you what. When we have some free time, I'll teach you to swim."

"Yeah?" She turned her smile on him, and for a second Joker saw not the hardened Commander Shepard, but the sweet girl from Hackett's office ten years ago. For months their relationship had narrowed to simply pilot and commander, Shepard becoming more and more dedicated to the mission at hand. Joker found he'd missed her easy smiles, which lately only Kaidan seemed to be able to draw forth. Secretly, and a bit smugly, he was glad he still had the ability to brighten her mood, if only a little.

"Yeah," he said, with a nod. "It'll be kind of awesome to have _one_ thing I can do that you can't."

"I can't fly a ship, either," she pointed out.

"Well, I can teach you that, too," he shrugged.

"I'm holding you to that. We have a lot of good shore leave stacked up waiting for us when we're done here." Her elbow nudged his, and she winked at him.

"It's a deal, _Commander_," he laughed, teasing with her title.

They were quiet for a minute, watching the activity outside.

"Ready to go wreck Saren's day?" she asked.

"Absolutely," he scoffed, and glanced sidelong at his commander. "It's been a hell of a ride, Shepard."

"Yeah, well, it's not over quite yet," she said bluntly. "Even if we get Saren down, we still need to figure out what the hell a Reaper is, exactly."

"You mean _when_ we get Saren, you can just ask him nicely," Joker corrected.

"I'm sure if I say please, he'll tell me his entire plan."

"Oh, of course. Get him to monologue. Don't you watch Blasto?"

"Required Spectre training vids," she replied solemnly. They shared one more brief laugh over the ridiculousness of their current lives, before Shepard finally and effortlessly resolved herself back into her rank.

"See you on the other side, Lieutenant." It was the closest she would ever get to a goodbye on the field. Honest farewells were bad luck, she told him once.

"Kill 'em good, Commander."

* * *

><p>He found her in the cargo hold.<p>

She had disappeared as soon as the debriefing with the Council was complete, and though it was difficult to misplace anyone on such a tiny ship… it was obvious she didn't want to be followed. Honestly, though, Joker didn't give half a shit what she wanted. He wasn't going to let her sit through this one alone.

But his resolve failed him when he found her sitting hunched at Ashley's station, her forehead resting against her folded hands, her thumbs pressed into her eyes. She was completely still, silent, barely even appeared to be breathing. A half-stripped assault rifle rested between her elbows, the disassembled parts arranged neatly on the rest of the table.

"Not now," she said, without looking up. Her voice was toneless and hollow.

Coming here was stupid, he realized. Faced with this broken shell of Shepard, he had no idea what to say. Couldn't find words that wouldn't just make things worse. All he ever had to offer were jokes and wisecracks, and there was never going to be a _less_ appropriate time for humor. So he stood there in silence, balanced on his crutches, feeling more useless than ever before in his life. Maybe it would be better if he just left her to grieve alone.

"What if I made the wrong choice?"

He had already half turned away, and so at first he thought he imagined the question. But she had lowered her hands, and was staring sightlessly at the table top.

"I keep telling myself," she continued, in the same inflectionless tone, "that he was the superior officer. That the bomb had to detonate no matter what. That Ashley understood the risks going in. But what if…" here her voice cracked, and she looked at Joker with eyes so sorrowful they threatened to drown him. "What if that's not why I went back for Kaidan? What if I… what if…"

She clearly wanted him to say something here, needed him to reassure her or comfort her or _something_… but all he could do was stare at her, his jaw working as he groped for words that wouldn't come.

When it became clear Joker had nothing to offer, Shepard closed her eyes and turned back to the table. "I just need a minute, okay?" she said, the emotion once again drained from her words. It was a clear dismissal, as she dropped her head back into her hand.

"Elle…" he said, finally, too late.

"Please, Jeff," she said.

"No," he said, reckless in his distress at seeing her so shattered. "I'm not going to leave you down here alone. Elle, you can't-"

"I can't _what_?" she demanded, suddenly angry. Her lip curled over her teeth as she turned and spat out, "I can't want a minute to myself, to reflect on the fact that I just _killed_ one of my own marines? I can't be sad because my friend is dead?"

"That's not what I was going to say," he stammered quickly, recoiling. Desperate to undo whatever damage he had just managed to inflict, he tried to force out some kind of apology but Shepard steamrolled over his efforts.

"I have _never_ left someone behind like that," she snapped, and her attention returned to the workstation before her. As though she needed something to do with her hands, she began to reassemble the stripped rifle with tight, well practiced movements. Each part that clicked into place was punctuated by a clipped, angry statement.

"I should have been faster." _Click_. "I should have killed Saren." _Click_. "I could have gone back for her." _Click_. "I could have saved them both –" _Click_ "—if I was _better_."

"That's not true," Joker interjected, softly. "You're the best we have, Shepard."

Her hands began to shake as she tried to jam the magazine home in the underside of the gun. "Goddamn it," she muttered, after another futile attempt. "God_damn _it!"

The crack of the magazine striking the side of the Mako reverberated around the otherwise silent bay, accompanied by the sharp ozone smell of biotics. Shepard stood seething for a long moment, wisps of energy drifting off the skin of her still-extended arm like blue smoke.

Then an awful sob tore out of her, and she sank to her knees, wrapping one arm across her stomach, pressing her opposite hand over her mouth. She curled into herself, shoulders trembling.

For once, Joker's reaction was immediate. He was at her side with remarkable swiftness, and with great awkwardness he lowered himself to his knees, his crutches clattering to the ground around him. He had no idea how he was going to get back up, kneeling was something he had never quite mastered, but standing up was far from his mind at the moment. He slid one arm over her back, the other beneath her to cup her cheek.

"It's not your fault," he murmured, pulling her into his chest. She turned her face towards him, sobbing into his shoulder. "Its okay, Elle. You're okay." He rested his cheek against the top of her head, gently rocking her and whispering reassurances into her hair. Eventually her sobs quieted to just an occasional hitch in her breathing, though she continued to cling to him.

After a long time she sat back, swiping the back of her hand over her eyes in a truly futile attempt to dry them. "I should address the crew," she said, in a thin mockery of her commander voice. "And contact Fifth Fleet HQ, tell them Ash… tell them to notify her family."

"The crew will survive the night without you," Joker insisted, cringing at the thought of a blotchy-faced, puffy-eyed Shepard trying to bolster the Normandy's morale. "And I'll contact command. You should sleep, you had a long day."

The barest hint of a smile ghosted across her tear-stained features, though the rest of her face still threatened to crumple back into abject sorrow. "Thank you," she said.

"Don't even worry about it." He paused, and ducked his head to catch her gaze. "You… _know_ it wasn't your fault, right? You understand that."

Her eyes darted away from his. "Yes," she said firmly, a lie that would have fooled most other people. "I just… I think I love him," she whispered then, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Who?" he asked softly, though he already knew the answer that, despite all his best internal arguments to the contrary, was going to break his heart.

"Kaidan."

_Then why isn't _he_ here_? Joker thought bitterly, and felt immediately guilty. Kaidan was upstairs in the medbay, having taken a bullet in defense of the bomb.

"And if I had just been able to keep my emotions out of it—"

"Stop." Shepard obliged, though more out of surprise at Joker's forceful tone than anything else. "You're too smart and you're too good of a soldier for that to be true. Would you feel any better if you had gone for Ashley and Kaidan was dead instead?"

"No," she admitted, after a long silence.

"Then stop torturing yourself over it. Be sad, be angry, be whatever you have to be to keep going, but for fuck's sake, Elizabeth, don't pity yourself and don't blame yourself. Clear?"

"Clear," she agreed, though shakily.

"Now we've got a Reaper out there going for the Citadel, and you are going to tear that son of a bitch apart circuit by circuit if you have to. Because that's what Ash would have done."

"I am going to fucking wreck that thing," she affirmed.

"And for the record," he added, when Shepard pushed to her feet and helped pull him up, "Kaidan's a good guy, but you are so far out of his league."

For the first time since he'd found her here, Shepard finally smiled. She didn't immediately release his hands once he was upright, instead squeezing them gratefully. "Thank you, Joker. You're a better friend than I deserve."

"Nah," he shrugged, smiling despite the pain in his heart. "Let's go find Saren and give him a big kick in… whatever turians have instead of a dick. Because that is also what Ash would have done."


End file.
